Friday, August 7, 2015

New Olympic Nation: South Sudan (Map)

Map of all nations in the Olympics, and their regional associations. Two newest Olympic nations labeled.
Map by Evan Centanni, starting from this blank map and modeled after this map.

By Evan CentanniIn the Olympics at Last
Last weekend, South Sudan was officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organization in charge of organizing the Olympic Games. The recently independent country, located in east-central Africa, will participate in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Country Name: • South SudanOfficial Name: • Republic of South SudanCapital: Juba (There are about 60 recognized national languages in South Sudan, but English is the country's only "official working language".)

South Sudan became independent and joined the UN in 2011, but for the last four years has been left out of the Olympics, apparently because it did not yet have a functioning national Olympic committee (NOC). But even though the country did not have an official team at the 2012 Olympics in London, one South Sudanese runner did attend those games as a specially-approved independent athlete.

The emergence of South Sudan's NOC has come despite the country being locked in an ongoing civil war since 2013.

Other Newcomers
South Sudan is now one of 206 official Olympic nations, and the first new IOC member since disputed Kosovo was controversially admitted last December. Prior to South Sudan and Kosovo's admissions, the newest Olympic members were Montenegro and Tuvalu, which both joined in 2007. Like South Sudan now, Montenegro was newly independent at that time.